Last year, the Spanish band Broken Peach gave us a Halloween edition of the song "Don't You Want Me," originally by The Human League. This year, their holiday special video is Blondie's "One Way or Another." Watch them perform as a squad of skeleton cheerleaders and give the lyrics their creepiest interpretation ever!
Broken Peach has released a Halloween video every year since 2015. You can find a list of them at the YouTube page, although you will have to click "more"in the description to see it. -via Metafilter
In the video game Assassin's Creed, the Order of Assassins battle the Knights Templar. The Knights Templar were real enough, but the Order of Assassins is fictional. However, they are based on tales of the medieval Nizari Ismailis, a breakaway sect of Shiite Muslims that flourished between the 11th and 13th centuries. They were so devout in their beliefs that they were willing to kill and to die to bring the Nizari to power, and keep them there. It got to the point where any political assassination in Egypt or Syria was ascribed to the Nizaris.
The popular image of the the Nizari Ismailis in the West began with the travelogues of Marco Polo, which may have come from Sunni sources, and other wild legends that had been filtered through retellings, often with political aims. The Crusaders had plenty to say about the assassins, but those tales were greatly exaggerated and embellished. Strangely, the fictionalized version of the sect used in the game Assassin's Creed is more in line with the historical Nizari than traditional Western accounts. Read about the real Nizari Ismailis at Smithsonian.
The title of the YouTube channel 5-Minute Crafts implies that this is a craft that can be completed in just 5 minutes. I'm skeptical that this rather involved prop creation can be done that quickly, but perhaps it is possible with a lot of prep work, like on a cooking television show.
Would this be a good decoration for your upcoming home Halloween party? Yes, but I propose another use beyond confusing your intoxicated guests looking for relief. A terrifyingly monstrous mouth eating humans from the bottom up is exactly what a toddler needs for toilet training. This mouth toilet would make going potty all the more fun.
-via Technabob
Tom Scott is going off on the peculiarities of the English language again. We use a lot of contractions, but there are a lot of other possible contractions that we could use, but we don't because they are weird. Oh sure, there is a logical explanation, which is what this video is all about.
The example he leads with is "Is this introduction weird? Yes, it's." Then he goes on to explain why that's weird. It sure is, because anyone who wants to use a contraction in this case would have said, "Yes, 'tis." The contraction "'tis" is old fashioned, but that has been the contraction of "it is" for quite some time. He eventually gets around to that one. Still, there are linguistic reasons we don't have words like "there'dn't've" (there would not have) but we do have words like "gonna" (going to). Tom explains them as clitics with syntactic gaps and stress patterns. Try to keep up, this is complicated.
When I was a young boy, there were a few things that fascinated me and two of them were insects: spiders and butterflies. I thought spiders were pretty cool and butterflies were pretty. There were a few things that creeped me out and didn't like to have in the house, and even today I still don't like them and I have no holds squashing them the moment I see them, and those are cockroaches. All other critters in between are fine by me. I'd much prefer that they not invade our personal space, and if possible, it's best to release them into their natural habitats.
I have just found out that there are some insects that are totally okay to kill; even scientists encourage it. The reason being these bugs are invasive species and they can disrupt entire ecosystems just by existing. Some may be hard to get rid of though, as my experience with hornets proves, but with the right methods, we can surely eradicate them. Gizmodo has the full list of insects here.
(Image credit: Jack van Belzen/Unsplash)
All things that happen inside our bodies are, in one way or another, connected to the brain, the control tower of the nervous system. Of course, every organ has its own cells and those cells have their own specific functions, but the brain is central in our daily lives. In fact, without it, we couldn't live. Of course, there are instances wherein people fall into a coma (essentially brain-dead) and come out of it after months or years, then recover after much therapy. But the fact still stands that the brain is vital to our bodies. And now, scientists have been able to create the largest-ever map of the human brain so far.
What does this mean? There's so much information that can be taken from knowing the different brain cells and how they work. We can find information about diseases, physiology, anatomy, and much more just by studying the 170 billion cells in our brain. Scientists say that by analyzing all of this new information, we may be able to find the root cause of neuropsychiatric conditions like Alzheimer's, schizophrenia, depression, and even autism.
It is the largest map ever made, but it's not yet all-encompassing. There's still much work to be done, yet this is a major step toward understanding brain physiology and the neural network that explains much of the functioning of our bodies as well as how dysfunctional parts came to be.
(Image credit: Milad Fakurian/Unsplash)
A day or two ago, the "ring of fire" solar eclipse could be seen across the United States. It is called such because of the way that the moon blocks the sun to show a bright yellowish orange glow around the silhouette of the moon. We all know that it's harmful to the human eyes to look directly into a solar eclipse, so we generally look at them through a film to obscure our vision slightly. However, that is not the case for visually-impaired people. Nevertheless, there is one way for them to experience a solar eclipse through sound.
Through a device called "LightSound", members of the BLV (blind or low vision) community, can actually hear what a solar eclipse sounds like. It works by light sensors converts the amount of sunlight passing through the device into sound. As the moon creeps in to cover the sun, the tone will become deeper, and as the eclipse begins to vanish, it will register higher tones. To hear it for yourself, check out the sound bite from TPR. - via NPR
(Image credit: Jongsun Lee/Unsplash)
How ironic that the business that swallowed Blockbuster as well as other video rental places and ran them to the ground because of the unique business model it had, at the time, of digital distribution of movies is now opening its own physical retail stores. Netflix announced that it would be opening brick-and-mortar stores, called Netflix House, which will sell merchandise from original Netflix productions, a restaurant, and even a Squid Game-inspired obstacle course.
Netflix has been experimenting with pop-up stores recently where fans of certain shows like Bridgerton or Stranger Things can have an immersive experience inside. Apparently, all of that was in preparation for their new retail stores which are tentatively going to open in 2025 with the first two locations in the US.
(Image credit: Venti Views/Unsplash)
If you feel the hustle and bustle of city life becoming too overwhelming, one of the things you can look to do is to take a retreat somewhere in the mountains, the forests, or the near the ocean. However, you may not be as comfortable being in the outdoors as we have grown used to the comforts of modern society and indoor living. But you still want to experience nature in its fullness and keep your mind away from the stress and worries of the urban jungle. So, perhaps this elegant, minimalist treehouse called Piil is the perfect compromise.
Designed and built by the studio Arsenit, the concept is basically that of a retreat house out in the woods. They also took into consideration the surrounding flora and fauna, one of the reasons why it's such a compact structure. You wouldn't want to change or destroy of the natural environment just to find a nice resting place in the middle of forest. Instead, they adapted the measurements of the treehouse to suit the immediate surroundings.
And so, they came up with a 19-square-meter space that stands at 9 meters nestled between trees. It offers a view looking out into the forest while maintaining a comfortable living space fully furnished with a bed, a bathroom, and a calming netted hammock if you'd like to go stargazing at night.
(Image credit: Yifan Liu/Arsenit)
A cat owner will tell you that cats are perfect because they love their cats. You would expect that. But when an evolutionary biologist says it, it has a different meaning. Anjali Goswami explains that cats as a whole have perfected who they are and what they do so well that they don't need to diversify or evolve. The only real diversity in cat species is size. A lion isn't much different from a house cat or an ocelot underneath the skin. Other types of animals diversify, like bears, which range from completely herbivorous (giant pandas) to completely carnivorous (polar bears) and everything in between. Meanwhile cats hunt whatever prey animal is becoming too abundant according to their size, from deer to mice. And they do it well.
Cats challenge standard biases in evolutionary biology. People have said to me, “What about bats? What about rodents? These groups have so many species doing all kinds of things.” And I’m like, “Yeah, because they suck.” They haven’t figured out how to do anything well, so they keep trying different things.
Goswami has plenty more to say about how cats have perfected the art of being cats at Scientific American. -via Strange Company
(Image credit: Shagil Kannur)
Show me your talent pic.twitter.com/dZ8hVfn17m
— Why you should have a cat (@ShouldHaveCat) October 14, 2023
Why you should have a cat is a delightful Twitter account (or X, if that's what you call it) that you should all be following. Yesterday, they posted a challenge. It seems pretty easy, since all you have to do is pretty much connect the lines, but even that simple step was beyond some people.
I did my best
— Theebz (@theTheebz) October 14, 2023
Un chatfesse!!
— Clement Dos (@ClementDos91280) October 15, 2023
WOW fabulous
— MALAK (@MlI_lIM) October 14, 2023
Although some attempts were better than others.
🏆
— peridotbeach (@peridotbeach) October 15, 2023
Others found a workaround, which is okay, too, I guess.
you won
— Kalley (Cali) (@shutupkalley) October 14, 2023
It’s a Picture of a Cat.
— Joseph Jaurequi (@JosephJaurequi3) October 14, 2023
Some are genuinely good, or clever, while others are genuinely stupid. See all the submissions, and you might be inspired to contribute your own under this Tweet.
I have an highly effective, reliable, and entirely organic snore detector. When I start snoring, the snore detector gently taps me on the chest and mutters, "You're snoring." This snore detector is so efficient that I married her.
Not everyone is as fortunate as I. YouTuber Naveen Kumar proposes a technological solution that makes use of artificial intelligence. The Nicla Voice sensor board detects the sound of snoring as determined by a snoring sound data set. Then it provides haptic feedback in the form of mild vibration to encourage the snoring user to reposition so as not not disturb other people in the classroom.
-via Hack A Day
The case of Jennifer Carol Wilbanks, the "runaway bride" made national headlines in 2005. But you might have been too young to appreciate the story at the time, or you didn't keep up with it past reading the headlines, and besides all that, it took a long time for all the details to come out. It has nothing to do with the 1999 movie Runaway Bride, which was earlier. Wilbanks got cold feet before her wedding to John Mason, but instead of calling off the wedding, she faked a story about being kidnapped. Maybe she didn't realize that the entire nation would be mobilized into saving her. As the story played out, people who knew her were divided in their opinions, while the rest of the country went on with their lives. But what ultimately happened? For one thing, they didn't get married, at least not to each other, but there were repercussions all around. Weird History has the whole story for us. -via Digg
How would you feel if an idea that captured your imagination and became a rock in the base of your personal philosophy turned out to have originated as a bad example? Or worse, a sarcastic joke? These things happen. We've seen it in the past few years, as people gather in places like 4chan and compete to see who can make the most people believe the most outrageous conspiracy theories. But an idea doesn't have to be all that outrageous for people to make it a long-lasting thing. Take the idea of "meritocracy." It has the same Greek suffix as democracy, theocracy, etc. so we can tell the word means political power based on merit, or ability and talent instead of wealth or social class. Sounds like a good idea, right? But the word was coined by sociologist Michael Dunlop, who wrote a dystopian book about a meritocracy in 1958 in which students were tested and assigned their life's role by their score. It was meant to be a nightmare.
Read about the satirical origins of meritocracy, along with Daylight Saving Time, Schrödinger’s cat, Hitler’s Nobel Peace Prize nomination, and the Trolley Problem, which was proposed in 1967 in an argument about abortion, of all things, at Cracked.
(Image credit: McGeddon)
I had no idea where YouTuber Brick Bending was going with this stack of LEGO bricks, or what was illegal about it. In the world of LEGO artists, "illegal" doesn't have anything to do with copyright. A building technique is "illegal" if it puts stress on the pieces, which would wear them out before their time. This happens when there are incomplete connections, bending, or insufficient support. In this build, he insists there is no stress on the bricks, just incomplete connections when the project is done. No, I'm not going to tell you what he is ultimately making, because the process is as interesting as the ultimate goal, but I will tell you to keep an eye out for some cool frame rate synchronization after it's completed.
